The Forces of Nature


14.1

Lord Krishna said:

I shall again reveal to you the wisdom that is beyond knowledge. With this wisdom, the great saints have realized Perfection.


14.2

By living this wisdom, one can transcend the material world and become One with Me. He will not be born into the next cycle of Creation, nor will he be around to perish in its dissolution.


14.3

The womb of Creation is Brahman. In Brahman I sow my seed. From Brahman are born all beings and things.


14.4

Understand that for all species of life, no matter what earthly womb they emerge from, their Mother is Brahman, and I am their Father.


14.5

Beings are born into the material energy of nature, the three gunas — goodness, passion and ignorance. These forces bind the immortal soul to a perishable body.


14.6

Of these forces, goodness is the most pure. It illuminates one’s life and gathers no evil. It binds the immortal soul through attachment to happiness and knowledge.


14.7

The force of passion activates an insatiable desire for the pleasures and rewards of earthly life. It binds the immortal soul through attachment to activity.


14.8

The force of ignorance fosters darkness and delusion in the lives of beings. It binds the immortal soul to recklessness, indolence, and walking sleep.


14.9

The force of goodness binds one to happiness and contentment. The force of passion binds one to desire and activity. The force of ignorance obscures knowledge, and binds one to illusion.


14.10

Sometimes the force of goodness is predominant, suppressing for a time passion and ignorance. Sometimes the force of passion overpowers goodness and suspends ignorance. Sometimes ignorance pervades, obscuring goodness and passion.


14.11

When the light of knowledge shines forth from every sense-gate of the body, goodness is in control.


14.12

When greed, unrest, longing, and a flurry of activity are present, passion is predominant.


14.13

When darkness, dullness, inertia, negligence and delusion pervade, it is ignorance that rules.


14.14

If goodness is predominant at the moment of death, the soul passes on to realms of higher knowledge.


14.15

If passion prevails when the soul passes, it takes birth among those who are driven by work. If ignorance pervades at death, the soul is reborn as an animal, or as the lowest of persons.


14.16

Actions born of goodness produce pure and joyous fruit. Acting out of passion brings sorrow and disappointment. The fruit of ignorance is to wander in darkness.


14.17

Goodness garners wisdom. Passion fosters greed. Ignorance leads to confusion, madness, and slavery to an imaginary world.


14.18

Those who abide in goodness take life on higher planes. Those who embody passion remain in the realm of earth. Those who live in ignorance, descend to the lower worlds.


14.19

When a man perceives that he is not the doer of actions, as he previously thought, but that all actions are the movement of the gunas alone, he will also see that the Supreme is beyond all that, and he will come to Me.


14.20

When a man transcends the influence of the gunas, he pulls free of birth, pain, decay and death, and he attains immortality. He can also truly enjoy the nectar of his remaining life!


14.21

Arjuna said, “O Lord, how can one recognize a person who has gone beyond the reach of the gunas? How does he act? How has he freed himself from these forces?”


14.22

Lord Krishna said:

Arjuna, such a person does not object to the presence of goodness, passion, or even ignorance in his own mind, nor does he miss them when they are not there.


14.23

He sits as one unconcerned, indifferent to the activities of nature, aloof from the movement of gunas. He is ever centered in Self.


14.24

He is unmoved by both pleasure and pain. He views a stone, a piece of clay and an ornament of gold with equal eye. He is steady in the face of the desirable and the unwanted, and unruffled by blame or praise.


14.25

He receives honor and dishonor with equanimity. He is compassionate to friend and foe alike. He exerts no effort for the purpose of reward. Such a person has transcended the gunas.


14.26

He who serves Me alone with unswerving devotion shall rise above the forces of nature and become Brahman.


14.27

For I am the immutable Home of immortal Brahman, the eternal dharma, the ultimate bliss, the divine Absolute.